


Auto-Da-Fé (401.M41)

by Sister of Silence (Orcbait)



Series: Aegis of Atonement [4]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 09:09:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1599413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orcbait/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A seemingly boringly ordinary planetary auto-da-fé on a complete backwater turns into something altogether more paranoia inducing when Inquisitor Genevieve Von Saar realises there is a disproporionate amount of Inquisitorial colleagues about. A disproportionate amount of whom have been on the unfriendly side of the court bench. Why are they all here? And, more alarmingly, why was she send here?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auto-Da-Fé (401.M41)

_‘Cum historia mutat valde,_   
_Chaus revelat ipsum: Primum Daemon scelestus est!_   
_Cum potentia, Impiorum Filius fundet_   
_Mortem in Terram!_   
_Deinde moritur!_   
_Gloria!’_

_Hymns of the Imperium,_   
_Book VI-66: Obsidione Terra_

**Now**

I stirred from my slumber and woke to the subsonic rumble of fusion engines and slow, deep breathing that wasn't my own. Tatters of yesterday came back to me like the jagged shards of a half forgotten nightmare and I curled up against him, savouring his closeness as I put my arm across his waist and laid my head to rest upon his chest. For a long while I simply lay listening to the reassuring sound of his steady heartbeat and regular breathing, content.

When I eventually cracked an eye open, the room around us was twilit. The sparse, artificial light of cheap electroscones filtered in through the ill-fitted blinds and was reflected weakly around the small, unimposing quarters by grace of the abraded plasteel of the walls. He lay sprawled on his back beside me, one arm tucked under my waist and the other flung up above his head. Despite my care, he twisted his shoulders and torso to turn onto his side, towards me, when I carefully sat up. It would seem he was a light sleeper and that didn’t surprise me at all. I reached for the glass of water on the rickety nightstand and took a few sips as I watched him sleep.

The twilight of the room made the shadows across his chiselled features and the lines criss-crossing his face seem deeper, drawing his visage harsher and sterner than it was. To me, he looked peaceful and attractive; his expression relaxed, a five o’clock shadow across his cheeks and his short, grey hair thoroughly mushed. My gaze wandered down across his torso, which was marred by a lifetime of war and hardship. It heaved gently under his regular breath. I smiled faintly when I saw the familiar sigil amid the myriad of scars, inked above his heart and faded with age: a miniscule, thrice-pierced capital ‘I’.

I took another sip and then put the glass down. After a moment of contemplation, I leaned cautiously forward and lightly grasped the bare hollow of his knee, right behind the neurosocket, and tugged the numb leg towards me to turn his hips and legs in line with the rest of his spine so he would not wake sore. He muttered indiscernibly in his sleep at that and his hand brushed past where I had laid but moments before. I lay back down onto my own side then, as I did not want to disturb his slumber. It was early still and there was no need to wake yet. As I pulled the thin, cheap woollen blankets up around us I wondered if my life would be forfeit when he woke. I smiled wryly as I curled against him, pressed a light kiss to his cheek and closed my eyes. It was a miracle we were alive to wake to begin with.

 

**24 Hours Earlier**

It had been forty dreary, rainy days since I had arrived here and the overcast pre-dawn promised more of the same. It most wonderfully complimented my downcast mood. I glanced wistfully around the newly christened ‘Imperial Court Square’. At least the grace period was finally over and the public procession of the guilty could begin. Not for the first time this month I dejectedly recalled I could have been on Inana IV, continuing my investigation there at the behest of Lord Castellan Reardon. You see, a little over forty days ago an Inquisitorial summons had arrived and technically it had been Stan’s name which had graced its heading.

‘To: _Inquisitor Estaban Icipher, Ordo Malleus, Chambers Angelus, Scarus Sector_ ,’ it had most clearly read in elegant penmanship. ‘ _In the name of the God-Emperor, hallowed be His Eternal Vigil, and the High Lords of Terra, blessed be their rule, you are hereby summoned to stand vigil over the public penitence of Tarsis, now Taranys Primaris, once more returned to His Embrace. You will be expected for the auto-da-fé on the eve of its grace period, which commences forty days prior to His Ascension. Sealed and notarised by astropathica XVII-2V, this 282nd day of 401.M41. The Emperor Protects!_ ’ which was undersigned with: ‘ _Inq. Hallborne, Ordo Xenos, Chambers Talasa Prime, Realm of Ultramar_.’

 _Hallborne_. That name had ringed a bell, somewhere in the vague depths of my assorted recollections. Yet for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the man properly – something about Tyranids, bio-toxins and unlikely victories. Eventually this inability to recall him properly had started to irritate me to the point where I found myself at the Basilica Administratum, looking him up. It turned out my vague recollections had been accurate despite lacking in detail:

Inquisitor Hallborne was well on his way to his third century in service of His Holy Inquisition, having recently breached 250 years of service while heading only just into his two-seventies come turn of year – he must have been recruited at a sensitive age. He hailed from ill-fated Prandium, a garden world in the Realm of Ultramar, on the Eastern Fringe of the Segmentum Ultima, which had once been one of the wonders of the Imperium. No surprise then that he had dedicated his entire career to the Tyranid threat, and with noteworthy successes, having provided decisive aid on at least four separate occasions and governing the development of a bio-toxin that would attack Tyrannic, but not human, tissue. He had also written several leading articles on the biology of the Hive and their tactics of genetic infiltration of a world prior to the arrival of the Hive Fleet, as well as theorising the nature of the Hive's governing intellect, the so-called 'Hive Mind'.

According to Imperial records he had spent most of the past 200 years in the vicinity of Talasa Prime within the Realm of Ultramar, one of the few Inquisitorial fortress worlds whose location was on record by grace of the Astartes stewards of that segment of the Galaxy. I wondered what had brought the Ordo Xenos Inquisitor to our cosy little corner of the Milky Way, as the Scarus Sector was almost diametrically across the galactic map from Talasa Prime.

Using my Inquisitorial access, I had downloaded all relevant records, including some of his articles, to the small iSlate I had with me, and then expunged the digital fingerprints I had left as well as I could. Force of habit, I told myself, though I knew very well that wasn't why I had done it: Hallborne's presence here hadn't sat right with me from the start. By a large, we Inquisitors are expeditious, pragmatic people, and we rarely go out of our way without a very good reason. Why was Hallborne here, literally on the other side of the Milky Way, sending out summons for the auto-da-fé of some newly colonised backwater? Why had he come here, or why had he been send here? To my knowledge there wasn't even the faintest hint of Tyranid activity here for hundreds of thousands of light years around.

I had returned home after that – to the reasonably luxurious, single-floor apartment I owned, located at the top of Spire 17 in Formal A, Petropolis, on Eustis Majoris, the capital world of the Angelus sub.

“Where have you been?” I had barely set foot inside when Estaban spoke, appearing from the archway into the kitchen. He... still stayed over, sometimes. Yesterday had been such an occasion. The apartment was mine, but that didn't stop him from living in it as if it was his. His long, black hair was still damp and clung to the sides of his chiselled features and spilled onto his broad shoulders. He stood in the archway and filled it out, gloriously nude save for a towel which was precariously tucked around his waist, while he dripped water all over my priceless Gundrunian marble floor.

“If those leave rings, I am going to carve their like into your chest,” I replied testily as I put my satchel down and shrugged my coat off. The presence of his consciousness filled my mind with its familiar signature: a whiff of pine resin and tanned leather across the fresh air after autumn rain. His state of mind radiated from his consciousness. It felt content, and heavy with levity, unconcerned.

One corner of his mouth pulled up as he walked over and took my jaw in both of his large hands, forcing me to look up at him. “Are you going to be on top of me while you do that?” he asked softly, his glacier blue eyes hooding as longing flaked the calm from his consciousness. He pressed a chaste kiss to my lips and had to stoop to do so, for he was far taller than I.

“No, I think I'll do it with a 3-foot long iron,” I replied as I put my hands right above his hipbones, gently caressing the faint fold of soft tissue that had gathered there over the past decades, and was now the only part of his body not steely with muscle or augmetics. “You'd like it too much otherwise.” He made a noise at that, which rumbled somewhere deep within his chest, and made me glad he had not yet left.

“And why is it that I am the one that needs punishment?” he inquired, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear as he brought his face so close to mine that our noses almost touched. “I wasn't the one sneaking about.”

“I was hardly sneaking, Stan,” I replied as I pressed a brief kiss to his lips in turn. “It's not me who calls dropping into a comatose state ‘sleeping’.” I glanced up at him through my lashes, certain by the tension under the already gravitationally challenged towel that he would soon forget about the matter. He gathered me closer to him and leaned down to kiss the side of my face and neck. A little noise escaped me despite myself, as my hand wandered idly towards his loin and I let the warm, pervasive desire imbuing his consciousness envelop mine.

“So,” he continued softly, his voice a low rumble, and his breath close past my ear as he gently squeezed my bum. His grip around me tensed, as if he was about to lift me up, and it made my stomach do a pleasant little pirouette. “Were you out on one of your little Horusian schemes again?”

He might as well have doused a bucket of iced water over me, for his words shattered our fragile, hospitable balance as thoroughly, and I pulled out of his embrace immediately. As an outsider you may not understand why I took offense, and therefore I will attempt to explain it briefly and in plain terms: Inquisitors can be broadly divided into ‘puritans’ and ‘radicals’. Puritans uphold the traditional station and purpose of the Inquisition, and strive to purge the Imperium of any and every malevolent element as symbolised by the triumvirate of evil: the alien, the daemon and the heretic. Anyone, or indeed _anything,_ that crosses the teachings of the Ministorium and the letter of the Imperial Law, or dares to oppose the rightful rule of Mankind, is subject to a puritan’s scrutiny. Traditional, unyielding and unforgiving: that is the way of the puritan.

Radicals, on the other hand, believe that any method is allowable or even necessary, to accomplish the Inquisitorial task; even if it means employing the forbidden knowledge and resources of the enemy. They believe the end justifies the means. Radicals are heretics, and burn they must.

I am a Puritan, and of a Thorian mind-set. Thorians believe that the Emperor’s near-death at the hands of his once beloved son Horus allowed him to break free of the crude bonds of corporeality and transcend to true omnipotence, His Immortal Soul now able to wander the void unchallenged, to flit from place to place and even through time, to those instances where our need for Him is greatest. In those times of need he touches the soul of an individual, and imbues them with a measure of His Great Will and Charisma to so steer us all away from ruin. We await and prepare for the day that the Emperor shall be reborn and walk among us once again, to lead us on in the continuation of His Great Crusade and bring humanity to its rightful destiny as stewards of the omniverse.

Horusians are Thorians that practise foul arts to learn the mysteries of rechaining the soul to the shackles of the mortal world. They do this because they seek the reincarnation of the Emperor by ‘guiding’ His Immortal Soul into a suitable mortal vessel. They presume to act for Him and know His Will. They are _radicals._

In the past a certain quality of... _sight,_ was bestowed upon me. However, I am a Thorian, and it is not the Great Enemy whose shadow quakes my soul. Some decades ago, I made the mistake of confiding who it is, to Estaban. Naturally, he doesn't believe a single word of it.

Estaban is a puritan, and a Monodominant to the core. The ideal of their fiercely strict adherence to puritan edicts appeal to my want for order, and yet the rapacious voracity of the reality of their ways rebuke me.

I once loved him, as deeply as I had ever loved anyone, and I had believed he had loved me too. And perhaps he had, but ever since I confided in him what little affection he was wont to show has paled and he has held my confession above me akin Damocles’ sword. He is wary of me, watching me like a hawk and obsessed with my goings on, certain that I am up to something unsavoury, something radical. He has no proof. It is my word against his word, and his word is not weightier yet. He can search all he likes; he will not find what he seeks. I am a Thorian, and I am not up to anything… _radical._

“Low, Stan, very low, even for you,” I retorted, annoyed I had fallen for his charming scheme, and disappointed even after all that has happened, that it had been a ruse to make me talk. I briefly glanced down at the towel; one just doesn't fake a convincing erection. He had fooled me. I truly reached out psychically this time, and skimmed his surface thoughts. They told me what I had already suspected: he was genuinely aroused, but as always it was pushed aside by his nosey, overbearing attitude and ceaseless paranoia. When I glanced back up at him there was a look in his eyes that told me he knew all too well what I had been looking at. I backed away further, but he kept me put against him, his loin blatantly pressed against my hip.

“Let go,” I said, my hackles rising.

He did no such thing and instead reached a hand up to cup the side of my face. “I was concerned when I found you missing,” he said on a tone as if he meant it. _Try fooling the troopers_ , I thought, pursing my lips. _You and I both know you can’t stand not knowing_.

“Don’t be like that, Geannie,” he added, undoubtedly in response to my expression. If he thought the use of that old, endearing cognomen of his was going to work for him yet, he was sorely mistaken.

“Let go, _Estaban,”_ I repeated, stressing his full name and accompanying my words with a mental prod. Not to compel him to do so, that would require a little more effort, but simply to remind him that I could.

“I mislike it when you do that,” he retorted, his demeanour shifting like a cloud before the sun.  
“Then stop making me,” I returned. “Let. Go.”

He let go then, and I disentangled myself from him and pointedly went about my way – putting away my coat and boots, connecting the iSlate to the cubic cogitator in the study, considering whether or not to shower too and gauging the foodstuff still present in the cooling unit. And all the while I could feel his eyes on my back and his brooding mood on the edge of my passive psychic awareness. I sighed.

“I went to the Basilica Administratum and requested some information concerning Inquisitor Hallborne,” I gave in when I couldn’t stand it anymore. Judging by the uplift in his mood, I had played right into his cards. Since when had he gotten so sly, and patient?

“And why are you interested in him?” I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard his voice right beside me. He could be far too stealthy too for a man his size.

I glanced at him across my shoulder. “What’s it to you?” I returned and looked him up and down, and then stopped, narrowing my eyes slightly at the tensed twitch of a jaw muscle. I brushed past his surface thoughts once again. Was that… really? Jealousy? _Unbelievable._

“Yes, Estaban,” I continued as I turned to face him, and put my hands on my hips. “As you know, I am in the habit of chasing after the old relics of the Ordo Xenos, because their fading stamina and the far too plentiful ‘brief respites’ rife with wistful reminiscence about the ‘good old days’ arouse me to no end.” I could tell from the way his temper coiled itself that he didn’t find my jape in the least funny. “I just couldn’t recall where I had heard his name before,” I added, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice, “he’s from Prandium – did you know? And quite knowledgeable on all things Tyranid it would seem.”

Estaban nodded, but he was still angry, I could feel it press against me like a pillow to my face. Sometimes I wished I could simply turn off my perception and be happily oblivious to the state of mind of those in my vicinity. “You know, maybe we should travel that way when we have time,” I added as I took his hand and plastered my most mollifying smile across my face. “I have always wanted to visit Macragge and the Shrine of the Primarch.”

He lifted an eyebrow at that, and I expected a clever quip, but it never came. “Perhaps,” he replied, and let go of my hand.

“So,” I said, as I watched him walk away and forced my voice to a casual note. “When did you have to leave for Taranys Primaris again?”

“I am not going.”

“Wait, what? You can’t do that!” I replied as he turned and walked to the table, picking up a sheaf of parchment from it that I hadn’t noticed laid there before. “They’ll have your liver for gravy pie.”

“Ramses wants me on Mirepoix,” he replied casually, as he waved the parchment, underlining his words.

“How did you get out from under it?” I asked as I walked over to him. A grin slowly teased onto his face as he watched me approach, and I could feel genuine amusement seep from him suddenly. I eyed him warily as I took the parchment from him. It was a communique transcript but, oddly, it had not yet been send.

‘To: _Inquisitor Hezekiel Hallborne, Ordo Xenos, Chambers Talasa Prime, Realm of Ultramar_ ,’ it read in peaked crow-foots that weren’t Estaban’s. ‘ _With regret I must relay that Inquisitor Icipher has been inconvenienced, his presence is needed elsewhere. Inquisitor Von Saar will attend in his stead at the specified time and place for the duties required. The God-Emperor guides us all_ ,’ signed with: ‘ _Lord Inquisitor Ramses, Ordo Malleus Angelus_ ,’ and date stamped to 287-401.M41. That was yesterday.

I had long suspected Lord Inquisitor Ramses to be quietly grooming Estaban to be his successor, yet there was no need to make it this glaringly obvious. I could feel the suffocating press of Estaban’s self-satisfaction. Nor to enjoy it so much, for that matter.

“Me?!” I exclaimed pointlessly in dismayed surprise. And then a pang of disappointment ran me through when I realised that obtaining this letter was undoubtedly the real reason why Estaban had come to Petropolis, and not me. I stomped down my self–pity viciously.

“I am certain you will do magnificently, Geannie,” Estaban remarked, the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Be a good girl and have it send by an Astropath.” As he leaned down to press a kiss to my cheek he added softly: “have fun with the Ordos’ relics.”

* * *

And that had been that: I had had no choice but to come here and do my Lord’s bidding. Upon arrival it had turned out that everyone from across this damnable mudball who was guilty, or knew of someone who was guilty, had been urged to partake of the grace period to confess and thereby reconcile themselves with the Ministorium and the Grace of the Emperor. In the past forty days I have heard and written up hundreds of testimonials from the mouths of prattling soon-to-be Imperial citizens, who by a large pointed a trembling finger at their neighbours. I have investigated the truth of every confession I have heard, no matter how ludicrous, and discharged the forthcoming to the care of the Missionaries and the unwilling to the care of the Arbites Chasteners. To say that by the end of the grace period I was weary of this Confessor-work and the petty offenses most of these cases entailed, was an understatement. I could have been on Inana IV, where my expertise as an Inquisitor was needed, but instead my valuable time was wasted on petty quarrels the Arbites and Ecclessiarchy dignitaries were more than intellectually capable enough for to sort through by themselves.

Fortunately, the grace period was now finally over, culminating in last night’s public consecration of and night-long vigil on Penitent Hill. To let the vigilance coincide with Traitor’s Eve, the night before the Emperor’s Ascension, had been a clever ploy indeed. However, concluding four weeks of intellectually deadening work with spending a full night standing on a windy hill top in dreadful weather had left me feeling dead on my feet. Indeed, I had just come from Penitent Hill and was on my way to the court house, and I was far from the only one. There would be a mass at the break of dawn and a breakfast feast for all who joined. And then the formal procession of the guilty in front of the tribunal – for which I was also required to be present – would commence, and I suspected that would yet take weeks too.

I wondered, as I had a few times before in the past weeks, who the tribunal would be composed of. The Cardinal and Arch-Deacon, I imagined, and perhaps a Lord Inquisitor for flavour? What did they need my continued presence for? Across the past weeks I had begun to notice the exorbitant amount of Inquisitors that had been about this sordid piece of interstellar debris. Arbites noteworthies and Ecclessiarch luminaries may be drafted to swell the importance of an event such as this, but we Inquisitors are a different breed, more aloof… reserved… _autonomous._ It is unusual for us to be called to a gathering, especially one that so vastly overestimates its own importance. I suspected that the Cardinal of the newly established diocese of Taranys Primaris was throwing the full weight of his office around, in an attempt to impress his new flock. After all, the auto-da-fé was a public event, and everybody who was anybody on this worthless rock had been urged to attend to show their piety to the new order. I shook my head and stared balefully at the magnificent, larger than life, newly erected, marble statue of the Emperor, which frowned down upon the square from his high vantage point on the pedestal in its centre. What had I done to deserve this nonsense?

When it started to rain again, I peevishly took it as a personal insult and neglected to fold an Aquila as I passed Him, swiftly crossing the square to the court house on the other side without a single glance back. Unlike most of the governmental buildings around the square, the court house had not been newly built. The foreboding structure had been erected decades before in sturdy, dark wood and fashioned in the unceremoniously feudal style of the world. It looked exactly like the embodiment of what it was: the place where freedom was taken and lives were ended. Pragmatically, it had been built directly above the entrance to the prison that ran for some way below the square, and the grim connotation of the statue’s watchful gaze occurred to me only then and there.

I swiftly ascended the roughhewn stone steps, wanting to get out of the pouring rain despite the fact that my power armour shielded me from being drenched completely. I pushed one of the heavy doors open and entered a short hallway that terminated into a domed, slate-paved hall where a small crowd of Administratum officials had gathered, in addition to quite a few newly instated Ministorium dignitaries and Arbites officers, and far more Inquisitors than I found strictly comfortable in such an enclosed space. All of the latter two groups visibly carried weapons, which did nothing to assuage my discomfort. I was glad I had decided to don my power armour, in case push came to shove. I briefly glossed over the collective consciousness of the crowd for familiar signatures as I pulled down my hood and shook what water had permeated out of my long hair.

There was no one, or wait… A slight frown creased my brow. Why was he here?

Some way to the back of the modest crowd I’d perceived a strange calm amid the flurry of consciousnesses, like part of a lake’s surface not rippling in response to my touch. Upon closer, visual, inspection, I saw a familiar, skull-shaped staff-head amid the crowd, and surely enough the man himself was holding it. Even from this distance I recognised him from the sliver of profile visible beside the high folded collar of his dark storm coat. It had been a while since we’d last met, and I was relieved there was at least one person I knew present.

I frowned a little. I’d never thought him one for excessive company and yet he was surrounded by several acolytes, or perhaps they were very recently promoted Inquisitors. At any rate, they were clearly his juniors. Warp, they were even my juniors! They were standing close around him, as if in a discussion, and if I hadn’t known better I might have thought he looked cornered by them. I smiled a little at the ridiculous notion and it was in that very moment that he looked up and straight at me, right from across the hall.

I startled despite myself, but then remembered he was a Psyker too, and that he had undoubtedly noticed my presence when I had glossed across the collective consciousness of the crowd. I quickly composed myself and took a moment to properly empty and ward my mind when I saw him shoulder his way through the knot of sycophants around him, quite obviously heading in my direction. I was just contemplating why he was moving so slowly and laboriously, when he finally broke from them and startled me all over again.

I could still vividly remember how we had been falling back from a premature encounter with Traitor Marines when last we’d met, some years hence, and how he had easily caught up with me in a flat out run despite his age, his strong legs carrying him forward in strides quite a measure greater than my own. From the stiff, forced way in which he moved them currently it was obvious that what strength they had once possessed was now all but gone. He appeared to walk by sheer force of will alone.

Our work in His Service cost us all, but it seemed to me a particularly cruel whim of fate that such a proud man should be crippled so, and part of me could ill bear to look upon him. Crude chasses, like the kind employed to rehabilitate those who could not afford proper augmetics, encased his legs, bracing across his shins and thighs, and by the look of his halting, deliberate turns they ran straight up in support of his spine too. It was clear that walking was an effort, and yet he held himself upright as he strode towards me, his shoulders squared in defiance of the disability, and his staff aiding his stability as he waved his free hand at the younger colleagues trailing around and after him, as if swatting away flies. It was only then that I realised the unintended cruelty of making him struggle across the hall to where I stood, and so I briskly walked over to meet him as if I had intended to do so all along, stomping down my bucking sympathy as best I could. The last thing he’d want was pity.

“Inquisitor Eisenhorn,” I said when I met him three-quarters of the way down, bowing my head momentarily. However, feeling the half a dozen staring eyes of our juniors I added a fraction more demurely: “My lord.”

“Inquisitrix Von Saar,” he replied, inclining his head briefly and ignoring those around us. “Inquisitor Icipher is not with you, I see?”

That raised my hackles for no reason at all. Why in the Warp would he ask after Stan? “Estaban had more pressing matters to attend to, I am here in his stead,” I replied tersely, before I realised what I had let slip. It was highly irregular for Inquisitors to refer to a colleague by their given name, regardless of how well acquainted they may be. However, unlike our younger colleagues, Eisenhorn gave no indication of having heard anything out of the ordinary.

“Then I am glad he was inconvenienced,” he responded. I could only faintly feel his consciousness, and it told me nothing. I was tempted to reach deeper, but reminded myself I might not live: he was a far more skilled psyker than I and would undoubtedly notice, and we were well enough acquainted for me to know he did not take kindly to people poking around his mind uninvited. That and I had no wish to jeopardise the company of the only person I knew on this Throne-forsaken backwater. So instead I smiled mildly and took his ambiguous comment into stride as best I could.

“I wish I could say you looked well,” I replied, not entirely able to keep the concern out of my voice.

“You know, I’ve always liked you for your honesty,” he replied, and I thought I felt a faint ripple of fondness, but his face remained impassive and his lips a thin line, and in any case it was gone before I could be certain it had been there. I truly hoped he was well, for he was clearly diverting the topic of conversation. “Your concern is flattering,” he added then, as if commenting to my thoughts, and I realised he might well be, so I drew up my mental wards further. “But it is not necessary; I can assure you I am quite well.”

I nodded in agreement, but the voice of my conscious insisted he was just saying that. Again I resisted the urge to try and glean what I could from his mood and surface thoughts, and I realised I employed it way too often and carelessly with Stan. I was growing far too dependent of it for gauging someone’s intent. That would have to be remedied.

“You look your splendid self, as ever,” he offered courteously, and motioned towards a less crowded side of the hall. “Come, let us walk a while.” I was about to say something concerning unnecessary walking and his more than evident trouble with it, but the steely look he pierced me with quite effectively shut me up. “It has been quite a while since last we met, you must tell me how you have been of late,” he continued as he pointedly glared at each of our immodest public in turn, who looked at him as if every word was a revelation. “In _private.”_

They did not go away. However, they did not dare follow either when he turned his back to them, and insisted on leading me away properly, and to the other side of the hall no less, despite his obvious difficulties with walking in the first place. As I have mentioned, we had met on occasion before, and even conducted an investigation together. And though we were hardly more than acquaintances, it pained me to see him struggle this way. He did not deserve this. When he missed a step on the uneven floor it took every ounce of my self-control not to assist him. I’d only have to shift the loose hold of my hand in the crook of his arm a fraction to support him, but I didn’t. He was too proud to ask, and I would not demean him by forcing it upon him. I simply waited as he steadied and righted himself, and continued onward.

* * *

“So, how have you been since last we met, Inquisitrix Von Saar?” Eisenhorn inquired once we had reached the relative seclusion of the far side of the hall.

“Reasonably well,” I replied amicably. Although I turned slightly to be able to face him as we spoke, I did not let go of the crook of his arm; partially out of concern, and partially because I did not want to abandon a perfectly valid excuse for proximity and physical contact, both of which aided my passive perception. “I still have all of my limbs and all the necessary vital organs, and I like to think my sanity remains intact as well,” I added with a smile. “Yourself?”

His demeanour darkened markedly, though his expression did not change. It was like a sudden shift in the atmosphere around him, as if the air had grown denser and gravity pushed firmer at my shoulders, his consciousness evidently so clouded with bleak thoughts that I could briefly feel their grim intensity, if not glimpse their content exactly. “I’ve been better,” he replied, and his consciousness was distant once more. That was quite the understatement, if you asked me. I wondered briefly who – or _what_ – had crippled him so. I did not have the presumption to ask.

“That I can well believe,” I returned, and tried to keep my voice as even as his own. Silence fell, and in an attempt to push past it I crooked half a smile and tried to lighten the mood: “What’s with the fanclub though? I thought you did not care for an audience.”

I was relieved when some of the lingering bleakness staining the atmosphere around him ebbed away at that. “Sycophants and yae-sayers,” Eisenhorn grumbled, and the disgruntled tone that only just managed to struggle into his monotonous voice made me smile genuinely.

“They seemed to think the world of you,” I teased lightly, unable to stop myself.

“Funny,” he replied, and I liked to think there was a hint of amusement seeping through his mental wards. “One of them spotted me shortly after I had entered,” he added with a sigh. “Before I realised what had happened I was surrounded by fawning idiots.”

“That terrible?” I asked, unable to contain the humour in my voice, pleased that we had passed the bleak subject of his injury without incident.

“I am glad you arrived when you did,” he replied. “Or I might have still been stuck with their suckling presence.” I couldn’t help but feel a little flattered at his words. As I mentioned before, we were little more than vague acquaintances then, but it is always nice to hear that your company is appreciated.

“You mentioned you’d been send here in Inquisitor Icipher’s stead?” Eisenhorn inquired after a moment, and it broke my self-satisfied fuzz like a sledge hammer to a porcelain vase. Why did he insist on bringing up Estaban?

“I have been,” I replied dejectedly, unhappy with the turn of topic. “Lord Inquisitor Ramses needed him elsewhere, so I have been sent to attend these proceedings in his stead.”

“I see, so then it is you who is to be his Voice on the Tribunal,” Eisenhorn concluded neutrally, as if delivering the weather forecast, and the proverbial sledge hammer hit me all over again.

“My Lord Inquisitor Rorken persuaded me to sit in his stead,” Eisenhorn added, and I got a sense of wry amusement from him, although I wasn't certain from what. It would seem we were in the same predicament.

“Who is the third fellow victim, then?” I remarked. It would seem that everyone who was anyone had weasled their way out of the summons and send another.

“Inquisitor Hallborne,” Eisenhorn replied. “Though I know not on whose command.”

“Lord Inquisitor Ibn Sahin, I imagine,” I replied. “Antimar sub.” He glanced at me sideways, and I lifted my eyebrows. “I keep up with the goings-on of my colleagues.”

It was strange though, if this was a tribunal formation to be, then why were there two representatives of the Ordo Xenos? And as this was an auto-da-fé, shouldn't the Ordo Hereticus be presiding? Dear Emperor, please let it not be me, I pleaded quietly when I realised there were _two_ Ordo Xenos Inquisitors, but only _one_ Ordo Malleus Inquisitor. Just then an ancient bell chimed over head and I almost startled at its impeccable timing.

Eisenhorn offered me his arm again. “Duty calls, Inquisitrix” he commented wryly.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it. And please, share this story freely but credit me and link back to me. Thank you!


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